Cool. I thought I was crazy. :D

Sandy told me so herself.

Debbie

I vote for Sara, that's what I've always thought anyway.

I've always thought it was "Tara" and I could have swore I saw it in lyrics printed too. But my Tango album is packed away at the moment so can't go check. I think it looks like she is saying "Tara" too.... and on the album it says lyrics by Sandy Stewart and additional vocals by Stevie. That's kind of funny. I always wondered if she just added the Tara thing...but now I hear here about the Emmiline thing, so that makes sense.... Thanks for that info. I had not heard that before.

Reporting back:
Well, I have NO IDEA where I dreamed up this account by Stevie regarding this song. Perhaps I literally DID dream it!:laugh: If not, I really want to know where the heck I read it now! I was not TOTALLY crazy, though, in that she does discuss Seven Wonders in this book. (It's worth picking up at the library to read the FM segement of the book. It paints a good picture of Tango and Lindsey's departure from the band with lots of direct quotes.)

Stevie:
"But these kinds (referring to Prince's brief studio appearance to make his amazing synth contributions to Stand Back) of mystical accidents just happen to me all the time. The first song I gave to Tango was a demo my good songwriter friend Sandy Stewart had played for me called Seven Wonders. I gave the tape to Fleetwood Mac at a Halloween party in LA, to plant a seed, and when it came time for me to sing it live in the studio, I was somehow inspired to sing very different words that instantly transformed the song for all of us. In 300 subsequent takes, I could never sing those unwritten words of mine again, and the original live version we luckily preserved became the second hit from Tango!"

Doesn't solve the "Sara / Tara / never / hello", etc mystery, but I thought it was interesting.:)

Mystery solved: She is singing "Emmiline." I know this sounds like a stretch, but if you play that passage enough times it will eventually stand out- clear as day. A joint will also help in this endeavor. ;-)

Thank you! I thought I was the only one who heard that! I agree, it's Emmiline.

"You touched my hand
All the way
All the way down to Emmiline"

It makes sense to me :nod:

Actually, that's not the part everyone's questioning. :)

If you listen directly after the 1st and 2nd chorus, right after the lines "I'll never live to match the beauty again/The rainbow's end," Stevie is singing something... unfortunately, no one can quite decide on what that something is.

From the first time I ever heard the song, I've always thought she was singing/chanting "Tara," and that's still what I hear in every one of the various versions and remixes, and whether I have my headphones on or off.

Another mystery we may never solve!

Yep, that's the part I'm talking about. I hear Emmiline. Emma...line like in two parts. I just know she used the word "Emmiline" in the song earlier so that's why I quoted the lyrics :D

i respect your opinion. and i don't mean to sound like a jerk but that sounds corny to me. I highly doubt she's singing that....i'm more compelled to think it's "tara" over "hello." sorry. i could be wrong though....

however......

that's VERY interesting....i never thought about that. It would make sense within the context of the song....I can hear "emma" but not the "line." gonna go have a listen....gee, i just thought of something melacine....maybe she's singing "melacine...." :laugh:


what words did she sing that were so different? what are the original lyrics? is Stevie's contribution this "tara", "sara", "hello", "seven", "emmiline" thing we can't quite figure out? And if so, was it such a big transformation?

from sararhiannon.com Stories behind the lyrics:-

"Sandy Stewart, a very good friend of mine, came through Phoenix about... whenever it was... about a year ago, and spent two days. She played all her new demos for me. Amongst these songs was a song called "Seven Wonders." I instantly, the first time I heard it said to Sandy, 'are you gonna do this on your next album?' She said, 'when I wrote it I thought about you.' I said, 'what do you think about Fleetwood Mac?' She said as any wise songwriter would say, 'absolutely. Go ahead.' A couple months later, somebody said, 'you know that 'Seven Wonders' song, is it still available? And I said 'yeah, absolutely.'
[Now you also contributed lyrics to it as well.]
Yeah, but the only reason for that was because we thought we had written down exactly as I sing them, the exact words to Seven Wonders. They [Fleetwood Mac] cut the song without me there. Then I went in a couple nights later and sang it one time. Then I sang it three hundred more times but we went back to the original, very first vocal. I sang the words that I had written down and Sandy didn't unfortunately get me the real words before that. She knew about it so I sang those words. Then, I saw the real words and I tried to sing the real words, which are in fact very different. I couldn't do a vocal again like that very first time I walked up to the microphone and sang Seven Wonders. At that point, there's no choice in Fleetwood Mac's eyes-- 'the poetry is cut and your poetry is in or we don't do the song.'
[So that's funny, your embellishments were sort of accidental in the positive sense.]
Yeah, completely and in a very positive sense. I mean, there is something in that vocal that's real special. It's because I hadn't really thought about the song much so when I walked in and they had cut the track and I walked out there it was my first experience with singing Seven Wonders. So when you hear it, you know that was really the first time I heard it too."
~Stevie Nicks, "Rock Stars" with Timothy White, 1988

Hope this helps Joe!!

Love Sarah

That is very interesting and it sounds like she sort of just went with the flow when she recorded it... maybe that is why there are some mumbled words, maybe it was just a flub.

THAT'S IT! She's not saying anything! She's just mumbling, trying to make up the words!

Haha!

Thanks! Yeah, i have this interview on tape. I taped it off the radio when it was aired back then. I just wanted to know which lyrics were the original lyrics and which were Stevie's.